Falling For The Cowboy
Rowdy McDermott has a plan. Stay on the straight and narrow, help the foster boys on Sunrise Ranch and forget about love. The last thing he expects is his pretty new neighbor falling literally into his arms. Lucy Calvewrt is glad the handsome cowboy broke her fall, but isn’t ready for the feelings he’s stirring in her heart. She’s heard rumors about his past, and is steering clear from the kind of man he used to be. With a little help from his boys, can Rowdy show her that people—and hearts—can change?
Cowboys of Sunrise Ranch: These men have hearts as big as Texas.
“No need to thank me,” Rowdy said.
“You’re the one helping me. Saving me from the wrath of Nana is a good thing. If there is one thing she prides above all else, it’s that her boys are gentlemen. And I have to admit I have sometimes been her wayward grandson.”
Lucy smiled. “I’d hate for you to admit you’re helping me remodel my barn because you’re a nice guy.” And he might be. But that didn’t stop her from being wary...not so much of him, but of the way she reacted to him.
“Me a nice guy?” He looked skeptical, and a grin played across his face. “I don’t know about that.”
The man’s personality, like his eyes and his smile, sparkled and drew her in.
Just because she found a man attractive didn’t mean she was going to unlock her heart, trust him and eventually marry the man.
He was her neighbor being neighborly. End of story.
Right.
DEBRA CLOPTON
First published in 2005, Debra Clopton is an award-winning multipublished novelist who has won a Booksellers Best Award, an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, a Golden Quill, a Cataromance Reviewers’ Choice Award, RT Book Reviews Book of the Year and Harlequin.com’s Readers’ Choice Award. She was also a 2004 finalist for the prestigious RWA Golden Heart, a triple finalist for the American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Award and most recently a finalist for the 2011 Gayle Wilson Award for Excellence.
Married for twenty-two blessed years to her high school sweetheart, Debra was widowed in 2003. Happily, in 2008, a couple of friends played matchmaker and set her up on a blind date. Instantly hitting it off, they were married in 2010. They live in the country with her husband’s two high-school-age sons. Debra has two adult sons, a lovely daughter-in-law and a beautiful granddaughter—life is good! Her greatest awards are her family and spending time with them. You can reach Debra at P.O. Box 1125, Madisonville, TX 77864 or at debraclopton.com.
Her Unexpected Cowboy
Debra Clopton
Put your heart right, Job. Reach out to God.… Then face the world again, firm and courageous. Then all your troubles will fade from your memory, like floods that are past and remembered no more.
—Job 11:13, 15–16
This book is dedicated to all those making a new, fresh start with their lives. May God bless you
and keep you as you make a change in your life.
Contents
Chapter One
Rowdy McDermott closed the door of his truck and scanned the ranch house that had seen better days. Carrying the casserole he’d been sent to deliver, he strode toward the rambling, low-slung residence. He’d always liked this old place and the big weathered barn behind it—liked the rustic appearance of the buildings that seemed cut from the hillside sloping down on one side before sweeping wide in a sunny meadow. There was peace here in this valley, and it radiated from it like the glow of the sun bouncing off the distant stream cutting a path across the meadow.
This beautiful three-hundred-acre valley was connected to his family’s ranch. Rowdy had hoped one day to make this place his own, but the owner wouldn’t sell. Not even when he’d moved to a retirement home several years ago and Rowdy had made him a good offer. He’d told Rowdy he had plans for the place after he died.
Four days ago his “plan” had arrived in the form of the owner’s niece, so Rowdy’s grandmother had informed him, at the same time
